This invention has particular application for electronic apparatus that requires the electronics to be shrouded in a rigid metal or plastic casing. A portable oscilloscope is an example of such an apparatus. The support pads on which the instrument rests, i.e. on a table or desk top, serve the purpose of preventing the instrument from sliding. Whereas metal and plastic easily slide on the typical desk top and table top surfaces, it is desirable to provide the instrument with elastomeric support pads that better grip the table top surface.
As the packaging of such instruments has become more efficient and thus less costly, attention is drawn to items such as the mounting of these elastomeric support pads to the metal or plastic casings. Typically the pads are provided by small frusto-conically shaped polyurethane pads having an end post of reduced dimension protruded from its base end. Surrounding the post and spaced from the pad by the thickness of the casing wall is a flange. The flange is slightly deformable by reason of its thickness and the elastomeric material.
Also, typically a hole is formed in the metal or plastic casing (at the position where the support is desired), the hole being large enough for the post but not the surrounding flange. The post is inserted from the outside into the hole until the flange is abutted against the casing wall. An assembler reaches into the casing (obviously before the electronics are added) with a plier or other prying tool and forces the flange portion through the hole. The pad then resists removal except with a similar reverse forcing of the pad (not a likely occurrence in the normal usage of an oscilloscope.) The assembler then cuts off the excess post material and the operation is completed.
This operation is understandably time consuming and somewhat fatiguing when it is done repeatedly by an assembler in a manufacturing operation.